The Center
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: A brief conversation between Jack and the Tooth fairy about her center.


**This was written in about an hour while my internet was out. Sorry.**

* * *

"Hey, Tooth?"

An excited fluttering of wings and then a soft breeze as the fairy settled down beside him.

"Yes, Jack?"

Jack leaned back and swung his foot idly through the air, chewing over his question carefully before opening his mouth. "If you were the first Tooth Fairy, and you collected the memories...where are yours?" he finally settled on, only stammering a little.

Tooth's wings stuttered and sank to rest against her glossy back, feathered crown slightly wilting. "Oh," she said with a little smile. She said everything with a little smile. "Well. I don't have them. I don't have my childhood memories. But I still remember the rest of my life!" Her expression was bright and sunny even as her voice grew thin.

Turning to face her, Jack curled a leg beneath himself. Tooth didn't quite seem herself, all of a sudden, folding and unfolding delicate little hands in her lap and looking around at all the baby teeth doing their work.

"So...you know your center," Jack said, both a statement and question.

Tooth nodded happily. "Oh, yes!"

At his enquiring look she wilted again, embarrassed. "Oh! You wanted to know! Well...I suppose it doesn't make much sense if I don't explain," she said, twisting her hands. "I-I was born in a very different time from yours, Jack. Very far back and far away and...it might seem strange for you, but I was a mother."

"What?" Jack asked, frowning. "But you don't look much older than me, Tooth."

"Like I said, very different," smiled Tooth. "Most girls I knew were married by the time they were twelve. My parents were very poor, so they sent me away to be a maid. It wasn't all bad. Sure, I missed my parents terribly, but it was a big house and in the summertime there were hummingbirds by the dozen. I lived there, I cooked, I cleaned, I helped care for my master's children...oh, that was my favorite part. They were very small, and just starting to lose their teeth.

"But it was a scary time, back then. The Plague, you know, Pitch's golden years. When the children were afraid I would take pennies my master gave me as gifts, and when they lost their teeth...well, you know," she gave a small twittering laugh and looked away.

He knew that wasn't the end of the story. It was too simple, to neat and cheerful to be the story of a Guardian. Jack had died saving his sister. North had frozen to death trying to get gifts to his village's needy children. Sandy and Bunny were still keeping moot, but they only had all of eternity to figure it out. But Jack didn't want to rush her, so he just put his hand on her back and waited.

It took a while, but finally Tooth relented. "My master, he...liked me. I should have known, with the pennies. He always gave the other girls pennies, too. One day he called me to see him, said he had something for me, and...nine months later, I was a mother. I had a sweet little girl I named Grete. My master allowed me to raise her in the house, which I knew made me somehow special. After his wife died he would come to visit me more often, and that's how I had my three other children, Tomás, Heinrich, and Ivanka. My perfect babies. And when they were afraid, I hid pennies under their pillows so they wouldn't be afraid."

Her mouth twisted and eyes filled with tears. Jack grasped her hand.

"Why were they so afraid, Tooth?" he asked, uncertain he wanted to know the answer.

The fairy shook her head. "I tried so hard to protect them, Jack. To keep my babies happy. But my master, he...he was mean. And when he hit them they would lose their teeth, along with the rest of his children, so I tried to make it special with the pennies, but...I tried so hard, Jack! I wasn't supposed to stand up to him like wives and girlfriends can today, it just wasn't done, b-but I couldn't take it anymore!

"I tried to take the children away and he caught me. If there had been better hospitals back then, I might have lived, but...I didn't," Tooth shrugged.

Jack wrapped his arm around her. "You make it less scary," he concluded. "That's your center. You take something that could be scary, like your teeth falling out or-or being hurt, and you make it special instead." She nodded quietly, laying her head on his shoulder.

"Doing it for them made it easier," she explained. "When they weren't afraid, I wasn't either. And...and after I died, when I kept replacing their missing, teeth, it was like they knew. They did it for their own children, and for all of the children they knew, and when their time came, they became the first of my baby teeth. They found the joy in what I did, and it brought them back to me in the end."

As if on cue, a tiny flock of baby teeth came fluttering over and nuzzled Tooth's cheeks. She gathered them in her arms, kissed them, laughed with them, and Jack felt something like love swell in his chest. Love for the children they all protected, love for all their sacrifices, and love for Tooth, too.

Yeah. He really loved her.

Jack wished there was a way for her to have babies just as she had in her mortal life. Even if she claimed that her baby teeth and the world's children were enough, that kind of loss was profound.

"Hey, Tooth?"

An excited fluttering of wings as the baby teeth vanished. Her eyes were radiant as she smiled at him.

"Yes, Jack."

He reached out with one hand and brushed away a tear rolling down her cheek. "You're a really good mom," he said, and she softly laughed.

Soft glossy arms wound around his neck and she pecked a kiss to his cheek. "Thanks."


End file.
